142 
Current  Literature. 
1  Am.  Jour.  Pharm. 
t      March,  1915. 
and  there  was  so  little  of  it  that  the  compensation  necessarily 
was  quite  large.  But  there  has  come  a  great  change  in  more  recent 
years.  The  pharmacist  is  the  scientific  man  that  the  apothecary  was 
of  old.  He  is  the  technical  compounder,  the  registered  druggist, 
but  he  is  more  of  a  business  man  than  his  predecessors  were,  and 
because  of  that  fact  the  people,  those  who  trade  with  the  pharmacist, 
have  been  the  gainers.  The  whole  calling  itself  seems  to  have  taken 
on  another  form.  I  imagine  there  is  not  so  much  compounding  to- 
day as  there  was  a  few  years  ago.  Great  establishments  like  Wyeth's 
and  Parke,  Davis  &  Co.  do  a  great  deal  of  the  work  that  the  old- 
time  apothecary  did.  Now,  under  these  changing  conditions,  it  is 
very,  very  advisable,  it  seems  to  me,  that  there  should  be  frequent 
meetings  for  communication  of  ideas  and  thoughts  relating  to  the 
business  among  the  pharmacists  of  the  State.  The  pharmacist  has 
become  a  business  man ;  he  has  always  been  a  business  man,  but  I 
am  inclined  to  think  that  to-day  he  is  more  of  a  business  than 
prof  essional  man,  while  some  time  ago  it  seems  to  me  he  was  more 
of  the  professional  man  than  the  business  man.  Now,  is  there  any 
danger  growing  out  of  this?  Is  there  anything  that  you  ought  to 
think  about  in  connection  with  this  change,  if  I  am  correctly  advised 
and  my  conclusions  are  warranted  by  the  facts?  It  would  be  un- 
fortunate if  this  old-time  honorable  profession  should  become  merely 
business.  So  much  of  the  sentiment,  so  much  of  the  romance  would 
be  taken  away  that  we  might  feel  somewhat  sad  at  the  change, 
but  more  than  mere  sentiment,  more  than  mere  romance,  it  would  uc 
another  development  of  the  dollar  idea.  I  admire  the  successful 
business  man.  We  cannot  but  be  astonished  at  the  great  efforts 
of  the  captains  of  industry.  We  like  the  strong,  pushing,  virile 
business  men  who  start  with  little  or  nothing,  and  build  up  gigantic 
enterprises,  but  they  are  business  men.  We  would  not  want  our 
lawyers,  our  doctors,  out  apothecaries,  our  clergymen  to  be  dis 
tinguished  principally  as  mere  business  men.  We  like  to  have  them 
remain  in  the  realm  of  professionalism,  and  be  as  great  and  as  useful 
in  professional  work  as  others  are  in  the  business  field.  Now,  I  trust 
that  with  these  great  houses  compounding  so  many  of  the  things 
that  the  apothecaries  themselves  compounded  not  many  years  ago 
we  will  not  have  a  change  in  this  line  of  work,  and  that  the  apothecary 
may  remain  the  professional  instead  of  the  business  man,  realizing, 
of  course,  the  necessity  of  good  judgment  and  of  business  skill  in 
the  conduct  of  any  business  enterprise,  and  yet  there  are  very  im- 
portant matters  connected  with  pharmacy  that  are  wholly  unrelated 
